As all good porn historians have undoubtedly noted, Ginger Lynn has made a splashy comeback with her recent films, performing with a recharged, renewed vigor and winning the Best Actress - Film trophy at this year's AVN Awards (for her role in Veronica Hart's Taken, from VCA). Her hiatus from having sex on-camera lasted 14 years, during which time she'd crossed over to mainstream movies, with mixed results.
What's lesser known, however, is this: Throughout much of that time, Lynn updated and maintained www.gingerlynn.com - the personal site she started in 1990, back when the World Wide Web was a mere figment of most people's imaginations.
"I get 5,200 page views per day, with a daily average of 1,200 visitors," Lynn says, prior to leaving for a vacation in the Carribean with her trusty laptop in tow. "To date, I have over 4,000 members, and on a daily basis some 20 percent of them purchase my videos, photos, and memorabilia. I choose all of the content for my site and try to keep in touch with my fan base so that I can better know what they are looking for and what turns them on.
"The most popular areas," she discloses, "are a toss-up between the photo and movie sections. My live shows are always a big hit as well. I like to stay as directly in touch with my members as I possibly can. And a close-up and personal live show is about as intimate as I can get, without actually being in their bedrooms."
On her online biography page, she calls the site "my little area of cyberspace," a marketing and merchandizing vehicle she'd created as an adjunct of her company Ginger Pix, Inc. (which she affectionately calls "my personal corporation"), itself in existence for nearly 20 years. Fans logging onto the site can read regular updates about Lynn's recent activities, peruse photos and video clips, browse through her online video diary, send electronic greeting cards, and purhcase items from her online store. Membership by credit card costs $9.95 for three days, $24.95 for a month, or $49.95 for three months, or $24.95 per month by secure online check.
"I love the Internet," she says. "It's a playground I never tire of romping in. I haven't visited too many of the adult Websites out there, as I just don't have the time, but I believe what separates mine from the rest is the one-on-one interaction I try to maintain with my fans. I personally read and answer each and every email I receive."
She even co-hosts an online auction of her personal effects, via a partnership with the auction site eBanned (www.ebanned.net). "I have so many wonderful items that I offer on a regular basis that I needed a site that could handle the volume in a timely and effective manner, and eBanned has proved to be the perfect site for my fans and me," she explains. Fans who bid successfully on her lingerie were often pleasantly surprised to receive the slinky objects of ardor sprayed with Lynn's favorite Anne Klein perfume.
Hmm, does Anne Klein know about this?
"I would assume that Anne Klein only knows of my use of her perfume if she bids on and wins any of my underwear," Lynn quips. "In all honesty, a fan club member gave me Anne's scent several years ago as a gift, and I liked it so much and thought that it was so sensual that I began to spray it on my personal items. I actually ran out of it and have now moved on to Bulgari Black."
"But," she nonchalantly adds, "the most popular scent I use is my own natural one."
The items themselves are the result of years of amassing and collecting. "I'm a pack rat," she says, "and I have saved just about everything I have ever worn in a film, on stage, and to awards shows, as well as items from my daily wardrobe, which is a real bonus for die-hard fans. I have fans all over the world who purchase my stuff, and I do my very best to accommodate them whenever I possibly can."
The latter is a disclaimer of sorts, since she's unable to ship to certain U.S. states (like Kentucky, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah) and certain foreign countries, because of local obscenity laws. "I have chosen not to ship to certain states," she explains, "due to the fact that what is or is not legal or acceptable in each state, city, or county directly depends on who's in office and whether or not their husband or wife put out the night before.
"This is unfortunate for the fans who live in these areas," she observes. "But what I can ship to them is any and all Ginger Lynn goodies that are not XXX-rated, including but not limited to photos, soft-version videos, panties, personal Polaroids, hats, t-shirts, coffee mugs, boxer shorts, and articles of clothing I've worn in my films."
The films and videos themselves have become legendary. Since her return to porn, Lynn has starred in five features for VCA - Taken, Torn, White Lightning, Sunset Stripped, and New Wave Hookers 6 - and she also appears in one scene in Ashlyn Gere's new film, Crime and Passion. That's a total of 75 films, 69 of which were made prior to her earlier retirement in February 1986 (when she quit the industry at age 23, after 27 months). Notably, 16 of those 69 were done for Vivid Video, which signed her as their first "contract girl." Nice going for a girl from Rockford, Illinois, who'd moved west in 1981 to manage a San Bernardino Musicland store before meeting Jim South and signing with World Modeling.
"It's difficult to choose just one favorite," she now replies when asked about her "early period" films. She singles out The Grafenberg Spot, Pleasure Hunt, Gentlemen Prefer Ginger, the original New Wave Hookers, and her debut film, Surrender in Paradise. She also harbors a special fondness for Henri Pachard's Blame it on Ginger, particularly for her famous bathroom scene with Barbara Dare that single-handedly (so to speak) rewrote the book on girl/girl sex. "That scene will always be one of my all-time favorites," Lynn says. "Whether or not it still holds up depends on what you're holding." She adds that all will soon be revealed in her upcoming autobiography, tentatively titled I Did It, I Liked It, So What!, to be published by St. Martin's Press.
On her Website, she makes note of the fact that she used to run an annual "Valentine's Date with Ginger" contest, often resulting in hilarious encounters. "All of my 'dream dates' have been wonderful and amusing," she says, tongue slightly in cheek. "I had college boys who were my slaves for a day, a skinny-dipping couple who named their baby Ginger Lynn, a man who took a surrogate wives class before our date because I was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time, a man who came for a weekend and spent most of it at amusement parks with my son and me, and eight lesbians who joined me on a two-day scavenger hunt for the perfect sex toys."
Recently, and somewhat controversially, she accepted an executive position, as director of marketing at the Simon Wolf Organization, but left after less than a month. "Following a disagreement that Ginger and I had, she chose to leave," admits John Chambliss, CEO of Simon Wolf. "For the record, I greatly admire this lady, and her departure represents a setback to our organization. I doubt that I'll ever find another person like Ginger. And if you speak to Ginger, please tell her that I'm still watering her damn plants. I hate plants!" (Lynn guffawed, after I contacted her on her cell phone and read Chambliss' comments to her. She confirmed that they had a falling out and, contrary to rumor, she was not fired but left of her own accord. She also requested that her reasons for leaving not be printed.)
And as for certain rumors about her health that have been circulating, she says she's feeling great: "I feel better than I ever have. I had surgery several months ago, and I do not have any cancer." Much of her mythology also gets set straight on the FAQ page of her Website, where she tells her fans that her onscreen orgasms are often real and that "Taylor Hayes is one of the most beautiful and sexiest women I've ever seen, and though I have not been with her on film, I have tasted her privately."
Such tantalizing revelations keep her members loyal to her site, though that prompts the question of whether she sees herself as an Internet icon. "I have never seen myself as an icon of any sort, Internet or other," Lynn answers. "I'm just a nice, semi-shy Midwestern girl who has a side of her that is absolutely uninhibited. It's a bonus that my free spirit has made me very popular with the more playful portion of society."
She knows how to effect playfulness, too. In the "Online Newsletter" section of her site, she recalls her very first orgasm at a young age, aided and abetted by that marvelous artifact of modern engineering, the bathtub faucet. She'd performed solo, no cameras rolling, thighs poised to meet the running tap. "I quivered and moaned a mini-version of the same moan that, in years to come, complete strangers would stop me outside of a port-a-potty at the county fair and ask me to repeat," she remembers.
"I still love getting wet on a regular basis," she says, "and as you should very well know, all good girls keep themselves clean."
